Compare with my Vietnamese cups. The design is clearly of similar origin, they both even have a brown bottom:

TeaCupsSmall.jpg (100.2 KiB) Viewed 821 times

I wonder which country influenced which... When doing some research, I found out that Japan imported lots of Vietnamese ceramics at some stage, and those have been found in Kyushu. However, the Karakusa pattern is also said to have reached Japan directly from China.

These days a lot of Japanese motifs are copied by modern ceramic factories worldwide, so maybe that is the case here?

Just to clarify to all present and future readers, the kanji for "Arita" are 有田 - so if you see these characters on a piece of porcelain, it's a good bet that it's Arita-yaki.

So, for instance, Maneki Neko, your second cup reads "Arita" on the bottom.

Here is my contribution:This is a very very inexpensive dobin teapot. It's about 500mL in size and has a metal mesh infuser basket. I use it for brewing herbals & tisanes such as rooibos or for casually serving a large number of people. It doesn't get much use, so I didn't spend very much on it, but I decided to buy it after several occasions when I wasn't prepared to serve tea to a number of guests who were visiting.

My very favourite cup and one that sees every type of tea from Indian to Japanese. Actually its the only cup I ever use.

The peony on the inside has a sort of subtle texture to it. I tried to capture it a bit with two pictures. When there's tea in the cup the light catches the texture it looks alive.

Its stunning when you're drinking at the bottom of the garden and the sun catches the bottom of the cup. Its a simple cup with very high attention to detail. And for me the perfect shape and size and of course just feels lovely in the hand and on the lip.

I think I know what you mean by texture. I think it has to do with the cobalt underglaze being applied very thick or not being completely dry when the clear glaze is applied. My Vietnamese cups and the rice bowl have it too, clearly visible and feel-able. The darkest blue parts are a little 'dimpled'.

You're very close It's a little under 250 ml. *Edit: more close to 200 ml. I don't have a very accurate measuring can.* Quite big for a Japanese cup, isn't it? Not sure how much a traditional yunomi holds.

Amaranto, your other cup with the grape design is quite stunning. I just had another real good look at it. It's very unlike the usual Arita ware, and because of the grapes and the colour it reminds me of an Italian village house

Maneki Neko wrote:You're very close It's a little under 250 ml. *Edit: more close to 200 ml. I don't have a very accurate measuring can.* Quite big for a Japanese cup, isn't it? Not sure how much a traditional yunomi holds.

There's basically two cups styles. The Sencha cups 100-150ml low bowl shape and the tall bigger capacity cups used for casual tea drinking. Large amount of Hojicha etc. But of course you can use what you like.